The Pact

by Dawn Goodwin

  ‘No, er—’

  ‘Oh, are you ill? That’s a shame. Hope you feel better soon.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m…’ What was she? Depressed? Lonely? Struggling to cope? She couldn’t explain any of it to this stranger. How the last few years had nearly finished her off more than once. How she had had everything she cared about and yearned for ripped away and now felt like an empty husk, fragile and crumbling. Petrified of being alone, but not wanting to be with people, not knowing what to do with herself or where to start with putting her life back together. How some days she couldn’t be bothered to get dressed, talk or even breathe.

  Instead, she said, ‘I’m better now, really. Just taking an extra day, you know. A duvet day. How is Ben? Where is he?’

  Jade fussed with the collar of her jacket. ‘With his dad.’ Her voice was terse.

  ‘Sorry, none of my business.’

  Jade turned to go, then looked Maddie over again. ‘You sure you’re ok?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. I’d better get these in water.’

  ‘I didn’t thank you,’ Jade said quickly as Maddie turned away. ‘For the other day with Ben, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I just didn’t like seeing him upset.’

  ‘He’s a sensitive kid. It doesn’t take much to upset him.’ She was peering at Maddie with intensity. ‘Listen, do you fancy coming up and having a drink later tonight? We are neighbours after all. If you’re up to it, that is?’

  ‘Um, well, I’m not much of a drinker…’ Her mind latched on the opportunity to see Ben again, maybe play with him, make him laugh, and she suddenly didn’t want to be alone again tonight. ‘Sure, why not? What time?’

  ‘Say 7 p.m.?’

  ‘Ok, great.’

  ‘I’m in number 4. Directly above you. Great, see ya later.’

  Maddie smiled and headed back indoors. She could feel Jade’s eyes on her back, watching her go, but when she looked over her shoulder, Jade was heading out of the building.

  Maddie put the flowers down on the kitchen counter and pulled the card from the leaves.

  Happy housewarming! Much love, Greg x

  Sunflowers.

  Her favourite, as he knew only too well.

  *

  By six o’clock that evening Maddie was showered, teeth finally brushed and hair washed. She had eaten a large chicken salad and was feeling more human and wholesome than she had in days. A trip to the shops earlier that afternoon meant that she had a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates ready to take upstairs. She had also picked out a new Matchbox car for Ben and was far more excited to see him than she was at sharing the evening with Jade. Maddie hadn’t quite made up her mind about Jade yet, with her tight hair and cursing mouth. Her comment about Ben being with his dad implied that she was likely divorced, so the evening would probably involve discussing exes and having a moan about the state of their love lives.

  Moaning about Greg was not something Maddie liked doing. He had been good to her since they split up and she wanted to think he was a good person who hadn’t intended to hurt her like he did. What they had been through over the last few years… well, it didn’t bear thinking about now, but it wasn’t entirely Greg’s fault. He had suffered too. And he had had Maddie to look after on top of everything else. She guessed he had found comfort somewhere else. It happened, especially for men. They liked to be looked after, didn’t they? And they liked to fix a problem, but she had turned out to be one he couldn’t fix.

  No one’s fault.

  The clock ticked towards six-thirty. Maddie sat on the couch and waited.

  Would it be so bad if she went early? If she didn’t go now, she would talk herself out of it altogether. Besides, she might catch Ben before he went to bed, could maybe offer to bath him or read him a story.

  Fuck it, I’m going, she thought, then felt scandalous at hearing the curse word in her head and giggled into the empty room.

  The entrance hall outside her front door was cavernous, her footsteps echoing off the walls. She climbed the stairs to the first floor and looked around at the bare walls painted the same magnolia as downstairs. In the far corner it looked like another corridor led off from the landing. The door directly opposite her was number 4.

  Maddie knocked, then stepped back and waited, pulling on the sleeve of her cardigan with her free hand. She suddenly felt silly. Why was she even here? She turned to flee, excuses bouncing around her head, just as the door was flung open.

  Jade stood in front of her in loose tracksuit bottoms, her hair still pulled tight. Her black T-shirt was emblazoned with the Def Leppard band logo. Maddie wasn’t sure if that indicated her musical taste or if she just wanted people to think she was a metalhead. Maddie felt overdressed in her jeans, blouse and cardigan.

  ‘Hey,’ Jade said with a wide smile and stepped back with bare feet. Her toenails were naked but her fingernails were shaped into long talons and painted bright orange. The talons were tapping the side of a glass of wine and she said, ‘I’ve already started. You need to catch up.’

  Maddie stepped over a takeaway menu on the carpet. The same one had been shoved under her own door a few days ago. She bent down and picked it up, then closed the door behind her.

  The room was identical in shape to Maddie’s downstairs, but decorated very differently. The walls were covered in a beige, swirly wallpaper that was peeling in places. In one corner, the wallpaper had been torn away completely and crayon was scribbled on the lining paper underneath. There was stuff everywhere. A small dining room table in the corner of the room was covered in magazines, plastic bags, clothes and empty mugs. The floor was a cheap-looking, wood-effect linoleum, with a large blue rug covering most of the centre of the room. It looked like it could do with a vacuum cleaner run over it. Instead of a garden beyond the sliding doors, there was a balcony with a drying rack strewn with women’s underwear that swayed in the breeze.

  Jade clearly wasn’t one of those who cleaned frantically before anyone came over. There was very much a sense of ‘this is who I am, like it or not’ about the place.

  A dark brown leather corner couch dominated the room, facing a large flat-screen TV that was attached to the wall, on display like a piece of art. The evening news was on mute. Jade pointed at the screen and said, ‘Can’t stand that Mary Nightingale. Too much of a stuck-up cow for me.’

  ‘Um, yeah,’ Maddie said, although she didn’t have strong feelings about Mary Nightingale or any other newsreaders either way.

  She followed Jade into the kitchen, still holding the menu in her hand. The countertops were strewn with empty dishes and unopened letters that looked suspiciously like bills, all addressed to Miss J Tingly. Maddie added the takeaway menu to the pile.

  Jade was rummaging in a cupboard, her back to Maddie, so Maddie took the opportunity to look her over again. The seat of her tracksuit bottoms was baggy and her T-shirt had a tear at the back, as though it had caught on a door handle. A long thread dangled down from the hem like a tail and Maddie had to fight the urge to reach out and snap it off. Jade was definitely younger than Maddie, maybe in her mid-twenties, but her make-up-free face looked sallow, her skin the colour of paste.

  Jade finally found a glass and sloshed some wine into it.

  Maddie reached into the bag on her arm and handed Jade the bottle of red wine and chocolates she had brought along. ‘Here you go, thanks for having me over.’

  ‘Oooh, posh chocolates! Thanks, we’ll crack into these later.’ They weren’t particularly posh, but Maddie was pleased Jade thought she’d made a special effort. Jade handed her the wineglass and Maddie noticed an old line of lipstick still painting the rim. She rubbed at it subtly with her thumb, then rotated the glass so that the lipstick stain pointed away from her.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said. The white wine was cold but sharp and acidic, setting her teeth on edge.

  Maddie looked around for Ben, surprised he hadn’t come running to meet her. ‘Is Ben here or is he in bed already?’

/>   ‘No, I told you he’s at his dad’s,’ Jade said sharply.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. I brought him a present.’

  Jade looked at the toy car Maddie held out, then took it and tossed the box onto the kitchen counter, saying, ‘I’ll give it to him when I see him next, thanks. Truth is, I’m shattered, so I’m pleased the little shit isn’t here.’ Maddie’s eyebrows shot up, but Jade didn’t seem to notice as she walked past her and flopped onto the couch. ‘Sit, sit,’ she said, gesticulating with her wineglass again.

  Maddie sat primly on the couch, adjusting the cushion behind her, and set her bag at her feet.

  ‘So…’ Jade said, staring at her. ‘What’s your story then?’

  ‘My story?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re married, but you live alone?’ She was looking at the thin wedding band and shiny, square-cut diamond Maddie still wore on her left hand.

  ‘Oh! We’re separated.’ Maddie tucked her hand beneath her.

  Jade raised her almost non-existent eyebrows. ‘But still wearing the ring, so newly separated. Interesting. Who cheated? You or him? I can’t imagine it was you. You look too… nice.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that—’

  ‘And kids?’ she continued before Maddie could clarify.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Smart woman. Little buggers suck the life out of you.’ Maddie realised that Jade was already a little drunk. She slurped her wine, then noticed the look on Maddie’s face and said quickly, ‘Sorry, Ben is a sweetie when he wants to be. It’s just hard work sometimes, you know?’

  Maddie didn’t know.

  ‘Do you work?’ Jade continued.

  ‘Not anymore. I used to work for my husband – bookkeeper and admin for his company.’

  ‘Oh, shit, so you lost a husband and a boss? That sucks.’

  ‘Yes and no. I still have the job if I want it. I don’t know if I do though.’ Maddie sipped on the wine for something to do. ‘What about you? Do you work?’

  ‘Ben is my work, ha!’ Her attention was diverted by the television. ‘Don’t judge me, but I love this show!’ Jade turned the volume up as The One Show started.

  They sat in silence for a while, Jade occasionally laughing out loud, while Maddie looked around some more, curious at how different the flat felt to her own. It was certainly more chaotic and messy, but also more lived in, like things happened here, stories were told, dramas unfolded. Her own flat still felt sterile and cold in comparison, with no memories to warm up the walls just yet. There was a basket of toys in one corner near to the wall art scribbles. Down the corridor she could just make out an open bedroom door with a glimpse of an unmade king-size bed. The door to the second bedroom, which she assumed was Ben’s, was closed. Maddie’s small second bedroom in the flat downstairs was filled with the boxes she hadn’t unpacked yet. A dumping ground of old memories, shared mostly with Greg.

  In one of those boxes was a shoebox. She thought of that shoebox now, what it contained, then pushed it from her mind.

  Jade jumped to her feet and returned with an open bag of cheese-flavoured nacho chips that she flung onto the couch between them. The leather made a farting noise as she sat down again. Jade was jabbering on about the celebrity guest on the television, telling Maddie that she looked like a pool inflatable from all the plastic surgery she’d had. Maddie looked at the screen and could see what Jade meant. The woman was stretched and plumped, her face pulled tight like an inflated balloon, but Maddie would never say that out loud. Well, maybe to Greg, who would laugh conspiratorially and tell her she was being bitchy.

  Jade’s hand was diving in and out of the chip bag as she munched loudly. ‘Actually, I should tweet that. It’d be a laugh!’ She leapt up, licked the orange dust from her fingers enthusiastically and grabbed her phone from the coffee table. Her fingers flew across the touchscreen, typing furiously. When she was finished, she threw the phone back down. ‘Are you on Twitter? You should follow me.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about posting stuff and people getting upset?’

  ‘Oh please, celebrities deserve it! They get paid enough and if they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t put themselves in front of the cameras all the time. Besides, it’s just a bit of a laugh.’ Jade’s T-shirt had ridden up and her rounded belly was on show, like a rubber ring over the waistband of her tracksuit pants. Maddie wondered what Jade would think if she posted about that. She probably wouldn’t find it that funny. She had what looked like a tattoo of a dolphin jumping over her belly button and Maddie was fascinated by it, had to force herself to look away.

  Maddie was starting to wish she hadn’t come. Maybe she could say she wasn’t feeling well again and leave. If the truth be told, Maddie realised as soon as Jade had said that Ben wasn’t there that she had only been coming to see him. To hear the giddy laugh of a small person, smell his clean, apple-scented hair and stroke his smooth, rosy cheeks, feel his tiny hand fit into hers…

  Her pulse started to race uncomfortably. She drank some more wine, still not enjoying the taste of it and feeling an uncomfortable fuzziness settle into her head.

  ‘Been watching anything good on Netflix lately?’ Jade said as the programme on the television ended.

  ‘Not really. I’ve been watching old stuff – The Crown, Gilmore Girls, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh right, yeah, I like all of that.’ Her face told a different story. ‘I’m also into newer stuff – American Horror Story, Stranger Things, Sex Education. You should watch them. You’d enjoy them. Drink up.’

  Jade talked like a machine gun, firing the words with velocity and aggression, as though daring Maddie to disagree. She was staring at Maddie again, challenging her with sharp blue eyes, and Maddie felt withered. She took a healthy drink of the wine, then another to finish the glass before handing it back to Jade. Maddie tried not to grimace as she swallowed.

  ‘Good girl.’ Jade got up, the couch bouncing and farting as she did.

  ‘I should probably… um… get going actually,’ Maddie said, getting to her feet.

  ‘What? Why? You’ve only just got here. Come on, we’ll watch something together. Your choice.’ She pushed Maddie none too gently back down onto the couch. She looked panicked and Maddie realised that she was possibly hanging on just as much as Maddie was, but showing it in a different way.

  Maybe she also didn’t want to be alone. Otherwise why would she beg Maddie to stay? Why would anyone beg Maddie, of all people, to spend time with them? She found herself dull, uninteresting, sad and pathetic, so what did that say about Jade? Perhaps they were just as lost as each other but showed it in different ways. Maybe Jade’s desperation for attention and affirmation came across as aggression as she hid behind her internet profile. Maybe she just needed someone to show her how to be kind rather than cruel. Sometimes it only took one person to make a difference. Maddie had read all the posts to that effect on Instagram. Suddenly all Maddie wanted to do was take care of Jade.

  ‘Ok, I’ll stay,’ she said. She sat back down and drank some more of the cheap wine, noting the relief on Jade’s face.

  *

  Jade stood in the kitchen and watched Maddie as she perched neatly on the couch, her legs crossed at the knee and one ballet slipper of a shoe dangling from a thin, pale foot.

  Although Jade had done a lot of the talking, Maddie was still very much a closed book. She asked a lot of questions about Ben, which was unnerving and a bit weird, but otherwise she hadn’t said very much.

  Maddie had an air of sadness about her. It oozed from her like a vapour you couldn’t see but could sense tainting the air. There was definitely a story here and Jade was curious. A few more glasses of wine and maybe Maddie would loosen up a bit.

  Jade had turned down a well-deserved night out with girlfriends at a club in Clapham for this, so she hoped it was worth it. She’d give it another hour and if Maddie still hadn’t loosened up, she would send her packing and see if she could still meet up with the girls.

  * />
  By 10 p.m. Maddie’s fingers were stained orange from the nacho chips and her head was filled with cotton wool from the wine. The second bottle had tasted nicer, probably because it was the red wine she had brought with her. A pizza box from Dominos sat on the table, containing one lonely crust and an empty pot of dip. They had settled on watching old episodes of Friends, laughing together as Ross struggled with his leather trousers and Rachel made Thanksgiving trifle with custard and minced beef.

  Maddie remembered watching the series in the 1990s when she and Greg were newlyweds. They would lie together on one couch, curving into each other. She could remember the feeling of his chest bouncing against her back as he laughed. Maybe that was why she loved this programme so much.

  While they watched, Jade encouraged Maddie to sign up to Twitter and Snapchat. They giggled as they took photo after photo with silly filters, each one funnier than the last.

  It had been ages since Maddie had had such a good time.

  Jade commented on Maddie’s iWatch when it pinged to remind Maddie to stand up. ‘Those are expensive,’ she said and Maddie explained it was a birthday gift from Greg last year.

  ‘I swim sometimes and he got it for me so that I could measure my distance better. But sometimes I think it’s the only thing that believes in me,’ she said. ‘It’ll say things like, ‘Come on, you can do it!’ and ‘You’ve got this!’, and I believe it. How ridiculous is that! It’s just a bloody watch, but I actually find myself talking to it.’

  ‘It’s a fucking generous birthday present. I bet that handbag was from him too?’

  She had clearly clocked Maddie’s Gucci handbag and, yes, it was another gift from a work trip Greg had taken to Milan a few years ago. Maddie explained that Greg had always been generous and that by the end of their marriage, he had resorted to elaborate gifts rather than quality time with her.

  Maddie showed Jade photos of Greg on her phone, but Jade seemed more taken with the fact that Maddie had a new iPhone 11 – an upgrade secured by Greg, of course. In return, she showed Maddie her iPhone XS with its cracked screen and complained at how poor the camera quality was on it. Maddie noticed her screen wallpaper was a photo of Ben eating ice cream and her heart clenched like a muscle spasm. Maddie’s wallpaper was a generic photo of sunflowers.